Not Asking For Forever
by GreenNereid
Summary: Saphir uses an arte on Jade to reveal his true desires. Both of them know it can only last one night, but the trails of desire stay for a long time. JadexSaphir, slightly one-sided. Rated T for minor suggestive scenes.


**Author's Note: Wow...it's been forever since I wrote a romance scene. I'm always open for critique and comments, I would appreciate any advice! I'm also considering a LukexTear fanfic after this one.**

I had no idea anything could weigh on my mind so much. Ha. This is not good.

Each step out of the Keterburg hotel is slippery. The roofs are glazed with the same snow that is falling now, looking like it could spear someone through the sternum for a killing blow. The same old things. I wish they would disappear.

Nephry stands outside, waiting like I was for Luke, knowing what she had told him. So many memories are shimmering in her eyes, the eyes that made all the other children love her. I was always blind to that beauty, not just because she is my sister.

I force a smile. "Let's have another long conversation about this. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

She rolls her eyes. "I just want to keep everyone safe."

"Safe from me? What have I ever done to anyone?"

"I don't know the rest of the story, okay? And I don't expect you'll tell me," says Nephry, pulling her jacket tighter around herself. "I haven't seen you in years, Jade." She is waiting for me to say something, and when I don't she suggests, "Want to go back inside?"

"Back and forth. That's all this mission is," I say. But I lead her into the hotel. She presses the buttons in the elevator and I don't bother to remind her I remember all the quirks of this one, how the 3 is no longer operational and the 5 must be rammed with a sword to do your bidding. The elevator hums in our silence, then drops us off on my floor.

Our shoes click on the hall carpeting. "You're right," I tell her. "If you wanted to know, you could have just asked our Mister Fon Fabre."

"I guess it doesn't matter. The thing is, someone came to see you."

I have a feeling who it is. The same twinge before a battle with a strong enemy, that thought of _I don't want to deal with this. _"Keep him away from me," I say.

"It's a little too late for that. Think of it as a redeeming night, okay? Make someone else happy for a change." She opens the door and walks off, leaving me alone with a certain God-General.

He is leaning against the wall with that part-lizard, part-stalker grin, and that isn't the only disturbing thing. His black shirt shows way too much bare chest and pants revealing leg and a little of something I never desired to see. It seems he tried to do something with his hair, but it still resembles the clump of snow the upperclassmen in the Keterburg School dumped on his head years ago. All the annoyance is back, but so is the tiny voice in the back of my head. What is says is never certain, but it's nothing good.

He raises his eyebrows, looking more pathetic than usual. "Hello, Jade."

"Saphir." I sigh. "Do I want to know why you're in my room?" He paces closer, but I lift up a hand. "No, don't tell me. I think you're playing tag with me."

"Tag?!" Saphir immediately covers his nose, no doubt hiding the snot. "How dare you? That's so elementary! I'll have you know that you are in my revenge journal 2,031 consecutive times for the same thing-you just can't understand how amazing I am!"

"I don't have time for this." I turn away.

"Wait! You still owe me Gald for my poor, gorgeous Kaiser Dist R!"

I put my hand on the doorknob. For once, I don't feel like fighting him.

The words rush out of his mouth. "I beg of all that is holy to reveal thy glory, come in the name of Dist the Rose to bring out another side of my enemy-"

"What are you-"

"_Shattering Desire!"_

It must be a mystic arte, but nothing happens. I can't think. I can't-

Saphir rushes forward and grabs me around the waist. Suddenly that voice in my head is screaming for me to do the same and I struggle to fight it.

"No!" I slap his hand and he cries out. When I stumble away he swiftly returns, wrapping his arms around me.

"What the hell did you do?" I demand. My voice isn't powerful enough to mean much, and he seems to notice.

"I'm finding out the truth," says Saphir.

"I'll show you the truth. Do you want me to teach you another lesson?" But my heart isn't in it.

My instinct is to move, flee, summon the spear from my arm and strike him. But I didn't want to do any of that. The voice is saying to stay here forever. I want to reciprocate his feelings...to feel something just once...to understand love. It may be the one thing that still confuses me, much more so than control over the Seventh Fonon or the mystery of why anyone would want to teach.

"Just listen," says Saphir. "It's a special arte. It couldn't reveal an intention, a feeling, if it wasn't already there." His genius mode is back.

"I don't know what you mean." I can't pull myself away, not without knowing.

Saphir closes the short distance between us, our faces almost touching. A whisper drags out of him, and there is the longing of many years in his voice.

"I love you."

"Don't say that," I protest.

His arms are tight around me and I try once more to shift away from the constricting embrace. Still, there's a part of me that wants to give up, to let go of everything and have what I want. I can't deny that I want this, not anymore.

Trying one last time, I murmur an arte of my own. "He who opens the gates of hell-"

Saphir touched his lips to mine.

_Please stop_

_I can't_

_I'm losing myself again..._

I let go of everything and kiss him back. He takes off his glasses, then mine- I wonder if he's practiced this before- and touches my eyes, making me close them. Flavor explodes on my tongue and he traces his hands down my face. I just stand still as ice, mind racing. I believe what I have is desire to love someone than an actual love, although there is a spark of that too, hiding beneath everything. A relationship between us is a lost cause, and it always will be. Why do I feel that it is akin to a disease?

We break apart and I see his cheeks burning. "One night," I whisper. "And one night only. Then we go our separate ways."

Saphir nods, but I think he is too lost in the moment to understand. I am too lost in loneliness and wanting it to go away. I don't realize we're close to the bed until he flops onto it, dragging me with him. With a single flick he whisks the sheets over us and tugs at my uniform.

"No," I say softly. "If we're going to do this, then I just want you to hold me." I've said it, exactly what I want.

"That's enough," he mutters, even though he looks disappointed. "You like stopping to smell the roses, don't you?" His voice sounds too much like a hissing snake combined with a dramatic actor to be sweet. 'Dist the Reaper' may fit him much better.

"I'm not replying to that."

"Why not? I sure am sexy. And so are you."

"I'm definitely not replying to _that, _Dist the Runny."

Saphir doesn't care that I insulted him. His hands travel in light, seductive tickling motions across my back. I had never been tickled before and he was doing an awful job of it. I hardly felt anything.

"It's okay if you don't like it, I'll stop," he says.

"I don't," I say. "At least not your hands, ah, petting me."

His fingers fell still and he pulled me closer, nudging my chin.

"I can't believe this," I continue. "But I..." Can't say it.

Saphir rests a hand on my face. "You know, I love your eyes. They're like burning embers."

I laugh dryly. "No, it just means I'm a devil child."

"It's not fair that they said that." He searches my eyes.

All my thoughts are spilling out, probably a side effect to the arte. "Why not? If I could go back and kill myself as an infant, I would."

"That would be horrible." Saphir clings to me.

"Tear said the same thing," I say. " 'It would suck,' she said, 'Because then Luke would never have been born.' "

"Not because of that insolent Luke child!" he says. "It sucks because...because I wouldn't want _you _to die!"

"Are you sure?" I ask. "You seem intent on killing me half the time."

"Someday that's what it will have to be," he replies. I almost miss how casual both of us sound.

"That someday might be soon," I say.

This balance of hate and love is quite strange, I realize now. It seems like a harmless creature, but in truth it is a dangerous one. Neither one has an off switch. Things just got much more complicated, because, so to speak, the 3 in the elevator is now operable. What I can't wrap my mind around is how two people can love and hate each other so passionately.

I smirk. "Very soon."

"Shh." Saphir strokes a hand through my hair.

I don't want him saying how silky it is, and I'm sure he will if I don't stop him. So I dive in for another kiss.

Both of us have changed momentarily. I've given up on pushing him away, and he is compromising, giving in on being angry with every little thing I throw at him.

His hands are in my hair, running down my shoulders, caressing my back, weaving around my legs like there's no tomorrow. There won't be, as far as we're concerned. I pull away from him first, my arms still around him.

"I've loved you since we were kids," murmurs Saphir. "Isn't that amazing?"

"No." I don't move, don't even smile. "It's us we're talking about. I'd rather not have to be myself."

Is it selfish to say that in the middle of everything? If Saphir thinks so, he doesn't say it. His wild breaths just sound like he is asphyxiating, or has run a long way to realize I'm not waiting for him. "Jade...I just don't know what to say to that. I usually have these gorgeous words-"

"I wouldn't, either," I say. That's when I know it for sure- we couldn't be happy like this forever. "It can never be perfect."

"I don't care."

"I don't love you, but I want to."

"I don't care."

Desperation laces his voice, enough to make me pull him closer. He gently touches my eyes again so they close, then he kisses both of them.

My devil child eyes.

The gesture eases something a little, a taut bridge that finally snaps. I can bend things a little, lie to him-all for what Nephry said, making someone else happy. "I might love you, to be honest, but I'm not sure."

I open my eyes to see his relaxed smile, and he lays back. Two bridges are here, as close to connected as they will ever be. "That's wonderful." He pauses. "Want to sleep?" Another beat passes with a flicker of his long eyelashes. "I mean, not like _that, _but that would be super ultra gorgeous-"

"Of _course _that's what you mean. But you're tired this early?" I ask. "It may be some form of narcolepsy-"

"You're the one who's up late," says Saphir. "Insomniac asshole syndrome."

I put my hand on my chin, pretending to think it over. "I'm not sure how much those two have to do with each other."

"Maybe I can prove it with a lullaby."

"Don't you dare," I say.

"Too late. Um, let's see..." As he thinks, he holds me tighter, rocking me gently. It feels like the Tartarus all over again, but his arms are so warm that I almost want to stay.

Saphir starts singing in this voice that is an octave away from opera.

"_Hush little Jadey, don't say a word,_

_Saphir's gonna buy you the Albiorne._

_And if that Albiorne...um, if it sucks,_

_Saphir's gonna buy you his flying chair._

_And if that flying chair don't fly,_

_Saphir's gonna hold you the whole damn time."_

Both of us are laughing as we lie down, still in each others' arms. It's not the Grand Fonic Hymn, but it will do.

I pretend to fall asleep for his sake, evening my breathing. We're so tangled together that I can barely tell his inhalations from mine, but he drifts off soon.

After a few hours of scattered dreams, I am awake. Saphir rests peacefully, the creepy grin on his face. His arms have become disentangled from around me and I slide them all the way off, knowing the others will come to get me soon. A sinking feeling drains me as soon as I leave the bed, and stays as I pick up my glasses from the table where we left them. Our attempt at happiness is over.

With one final look, I leave the room and lock the door.


End file.
